VidMama //

I sit quite peacefully on the Ganges River bank near Delhi. I’m a bit a ways from any India 5 star hotel and I’m having my fortune told by a little old lady with cracked skin and twinkling gold tooth. She takes my hand in hers and I expect it to be as rough as sandstone but her palms are like silk and she begins to shake a little. Just then a cow bumps me with her wet nose and then a fellow picking up firewood stops and watches. The lady looks up at me and I’m suddenly hungry and wish she’d tell me what great little restaurant is in my future and I see the outline of Mount Kalish in the background. The day before in Pharganj a kind of giant bazaar where they sell everything from glow in the dark Buddhas to back scratches, every vendor chatting at you like you were a lost friend. We could all the bolts of cloth and cheap kitchen ware one could ever want, but it was fun just to hang out and take it all in. It seems this section of Delhi has a life of its own as you dodge the bicyclists, the cows, the children darting out, the auto rickshaws. Just then I saw a fortune teller’s stand, with a thin moon and circle drawn mysteriously on what looked like black velvet. Something told me to go see her but I was swept up by the surging sidewalk and I vowed I would see a fortune teller before I left to go back to Alaska. So when I saw the lady on the Ganges River banks…

She just looked up at me again, and a small crowd had gathered around and she said in a most serious voice: “You will have a long and happy life!” and held out her hand to be paid in triumph. I thought that was the best fortune one could ask for and gladly paid her.

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2. The Markets and Bazaars of Jaipur, India
3. Delhi’s Famous